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Editorial: Odd land deal comes back to bite Hatch

Las Cruces Sun-News

Posted:
04/09/2014 01:00:00 AM MDT

What is the small, impoverished village of Hatch doing in the land speculation business? The answer to that question is, trying desperately to extricate themselves and regretting the day village officials signed off on this cockamamie scheme.

In 2012, the village purchased slightly more than 171 acres near Picacho Mountain, west of Las Cruces, at a cost of $2 million.

"It's a good deal for the village," then-Clerk Jim Schoonover said at the time. "These kinds of investments are done all the time."

In fact, County Assessor Andy Segovia said it was the first such transaction that his office had ever handled. And, as for the purchase being a good investment, Hatch is now doing its best to unload the land and hoping it doesn't get soaked in the process.

"Things aren't working out the way they were supposed to," said Hatch Mayor Andy Nuñez, who was not mayor when the deal was made two years ago.

This deal smelled fishy from the start. Nuñez apparently saw the land sale as more of a loan, with the expectation that local developer Bob Pofahl, who sold the land to Hatch, would eventually buy it back at a higher price. Pofahl was in negotiations with a bank at the time, but denied the land was near foreclosure.

Pofhal said at the time that it was Schoonover and other Hatch officials who approached him about the land sale, something he called mutually beneficial. "It wasn't something we were aggressively pursuing with them," he said. "We bumped into them. Initially, we didn't think they were serious about it."

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The contract had language stating that the intent was to negotiate a repurchase of the land by Pofahl, but a final deal was never reached. Now, Hatch is left holding the $2 million bag.

Pofahl said he may be interested in buying the land back at some time in the future, but Nuñez said town officials would be hesitant entering into future negotiations with him.

That leaves the town with acres of undeveloped land in a community 45 miles away that it must now try to sell, as well as 21 lots that Schoonover assured two years ago, "can be sold right away."

Patio homes and townhouses will be built on the remaining 125 acres, he told us in 2012.

"The village hopes to recoup its investment in six years," Schoonover said at that time.

Now, they're just hoping to get out of this mess with as little damage as possible.